Today's Hotness: Faunts, Superchunk, Favours For Sailors

>> It took us a while to actually focus on them, but it has recently come to our attention that we love the promo tracks from the latest Faunts record. The Edmonton-based electropop quintet, which we first wrote about here in November, released Feb. 17 its sophomore set Feel.Love.Thinking.Of. on Friendly Fire Recordings. The label has been offering the title track and the tune "It Hurts Me All The Time" as free downloads for weeks -- if not longer -- and the tracks have finally made their way to the top of the running ITunes playlist we use to keep track of our latest finds. We're particularly enamored with the latter track, a mid-tempo strummer with a lead synth line that could have made its way on to The Cure's 17 Seconds. The track is driven by blippy percussion in the verse, but it is the chorus, with its prominent acoustic guitar and punchy twee bass playing, that completely draws us in. It reminds us of -- well, it sort of reminds us of late, great Philly/Brooklyn act Haywood's devastating "Come On Tell The Truth" a bit, now that we think of it. We're posting both tracks below. And then we're eagerly waiting for our EMusic subscription to refresh so we can get the rest of the Faunts record, because "It Hurts Me All The Time" is pure gold. Faunts previously issued Faunts Remixed in November; its first longplayer High Expectations/Low Results came out in 2005.

Faunts -- "It Hurts Me All The Time" -- Feel.Love.Thinking.Of.
Haywood -- "Come On Tell The Truth" -- We Are Amateurs, You And I
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[buy Faunts records from Newbury Comics here]
[buy Haywood records from Insound here]

>> Our Philadelphia-based operative Deano pointed out to us that the forthcoming Superchunk EP Leaves In The Gutter is streaming at Merge Records' web site. And so we're streaming it. And true to Deano's word, it is fill with some hot rockers. That fast 1-2-3-4 that leads the guitar riffing of opener "Learned To Surf" reminds us of Spent's exceptional tune "Landscaper" from that ersatz act's tremendous 1995 collection Songs Of Drinking And Rebellion -- which, of course, was released on Merge. You see what we did there? Tied it all together, yeh? The quasi-title track of Leaves In The Gutter, "Misfits & Mistakes," is a bracing number as well, with some loose, strandy guitar solos that we dig a lot; the track was previously available last year on vinyl only. And the tremeloed guitar on the unabashedly melodic and occasionally jaunty "Screw It Up" is wholly arresting. Those are three tracks that could stand alone as singles, all issued on this one special little EP next month. Leaves In The Gutter will be released April 7, and you're gonna want that. Pre-order the set here. Superchunk's last collection of new material to see release was Here's To Shutting Up in 2001.

>> Favours For Sailors. They are from England. They are awesome. You should go buy their EP Furious Sons immediately, if you like indie rock. More on them another time.

Today's Hotness: Faunts, Primitive Painters, Adebisi Shank

>> Tomorrow Edmonton-based indie quintet Faunts issue a digital-only set of remixes, the more ethereal of which (Mark Templeton's gauzy remix of "Places I've Found" in particular) were the perfect soundtrack for Sunday morning coffee. The obviously titled Faunts Remixed contains 14 tracks pulled from the band's first two records, High Expectations/Low Results and the M4 EP. Remixers include Cadence Weapon, a fellow from the jarringly named Shout Out Out Out Out and Faunts themselves. Friendly Fire is offering two MP3s to tease the release, and we're posting them below. The act intends to issue a new full-length collection, Feel. Love. Thinking. Of., in February 2009. The original version of "Memories Of Places We've Never Been" was issued on the aforementioned High Expectations/Low Results, and also previously appeared on the Friendly Fire Recordings Sampler 2007.

Faunts -- "Memories Of Places We've Never Been (TH White Remix)" -- Faunts Remixed
Faunts -- "M4 (Part II) (The Paronomasaic Remix)" -- Faunts Remixed
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[buy Faunts Remixed from Friendly Fire right here]

>> We previously discussed Orange County, Calif.-based indie rock sextet Primitive Painters here in early 2005 (we regret saying its music was "a bit wimpy" -- if we had a do-over we'd say something like "heart-on-sleeve"). Now that there is news of a new full-length from the act, let's review: Primitive Painters recorded a really great demo called Dirtclods in the early '90s that sounded like the atmospheric British guitar rock of the day injected with a bit of SoCal punk energy. The band caught the ear of UK label GT's, and rerecorded the stuff from the demo, added some more stuff, and released a debut that was also called Dirtclods. This led to some confusion for us when we upgraded from our cassette dub to CD a couple years ago. We were puzzled upon receiving the CD that the songs sounded different, and it turns out our cassette was the demo, which we learned a couple years back when we pinged singer Dennis Crupi. Primitive Painters broke up in 1997, but Mr. Crupi and founding bassist (and now guitarist) Patrick Homa reconstituted the act in 2002 with a clutch of new players. Around the same time the band was named one of the 129 greatest bands from Orange County and released the short set EP33. Its new collection, Say It 'Til You Mean It, was self-released earlier this month, and while we have only heard what's posted at Primitive Painters' MySpace hacienda, we feel pretty comfortable saying its best stuff is even better than the best old tunes. Where the Dirtclods demos were fairly spare, the production on Say It 'Til You Mean It is lush, in places particularly imaginative, and there are tons of big guitars and bigger melodies. The updated Primitive Painters sound is reminiscent of "Regret"-era New Order, although obviously without Peter Hook's trademark bass noodling. Anthems like "Harm" and the New Order-referencing "Throw Your Heart To The Wind" establish a new beachhead for Primitive Painters. The sextet celebrate the release of Say It 'Til You Mean It with a show Dec. 6 in Fullerton, Calif.

>> You owe it to yourself to click this link and witness the COMPLETE. ROCK. MAYEM. perpretrated by Irish spazz-core trio Adebisi Shank in glorious full-screen video. How much speed are these guys on? How does guitarist Lar get those crazy sounds out of his arsenal of pedals? Why didn't several of the audience members' heads just explode like so many M80'd melons? We simply can't process this. This 16-minute set captured Oct. 17 at The Fighting Cocks in Kingston, England is the most bonkers thing we've seen in we don't know how long. So many questions. Why is the bass player Vinny wearing a full head veil? Did the BeatCastTV editors add some sort of strobe effect to the footage and speed it up, or is this band just going off like crazy? Spectacular, and a little more ear-friendly than fellow English grind merchants Rolo Tomassi, whom we've been meaning to mention in these electronic pages lately.

>> Notable ghost logos: Ghostly International. Johnny Foreigner. Larytta.